Conon of Iconium the Elder

Holy Venerable Martyr Conon of Iconium the Elder lived at Iconium in Asia Minor and suffered together with his son, the deacon Conon the Younger, in the time of the emperor Aurelian (270-275).

Left a widower, Conon withdrew with his seven-⁠year-⁠old son to a monastery. For his devout life he received the gift of casting out demons, healing the sick and giving sight to the blind, and among the pagans he preached the teaching of Christ and turned many. The governor Domitian, persecutor of Christians, heard of him. The saint was brought to trial and forced to offer sacrifice to idols, but the preacher did not yield and was tortured. His seventeen-⁠year-⁠old son, the deacon Conon, was also brought to the trial, and when not even with enticements could he be persuaded to renounce his faith, father and son were cruelly tormented: on an iron bed heated red-⁠hot, stripped, they were doused with boiling oil, thrown into a cauldron of boiling tin, sulphur and pitch and hung head down over heavy smoke, but, protected by heavenly power, they remained unharmed. The tormentors, ashamed, decided to saw them in two with a wooden saw.

Learning the sentence, the saints asked for time to pray and thanked the Lord that He had counted them worthy to suffer for His Name, asking Him to give peace to the Church, to shame the persecutors, to strengthen and multiply the faithful and to receive their souls. A voice from heaven called the sufferers. With the sign of the Cross upon them, the martyrs gave their souls to the Lord, and the earthquake that followed overturned all the temples of the idols in the city.

The monks buried the bodies of the martyrs in secret, in the monastery where they had struggled. The relics were later brought to Italy, to Acerra in Campania. Saint Conon the Elder is commemorated on 19 March, in the new style. Their life is also found in the Lives of the Saints by Saint Dimitry of Rostov.